Episode 26: Obake Night Game [おばけナイター], scene 2, cuts 88, 90. This canonical story from Mizuki’s manga (included in the new Drawn & Quarterly English-language selection, pp. 83-97) involves a mortal who happens on a magical baseball bat that belongs to Kitarō. Finding that it gives him superhuman hitting success, he refuses to return it when the yūrei politely asks for it back. In the end, though, he agrees to risk a game -- his human team against one chosen from Kitarō’s obake friends -- provided that he keeps the bat if his team wins. If he loses, however, both he and his team members have to go to “the other side,” and when they see the other team, they realize that the bet is a chancier one than they’d expected, magic bat aside.

This nice image, which probably came from Toei’s gift shop, shows four of Kitarō’s usual sidekicks: Nurikabe and Ittan Momen in back and Sunakake-baba and Konaki Jiji in front, plus two guests, a Daruma doll spirit and a green-skinned yōkai that I think is a kappa. Its place in this series and episode was confirmed by a screen cap from a fan page that shows another set of images from this cut.

Sequence numbers: A1 (yōkai creatures in the back), B6 (Konaki Jiji mouth layer), C3 (Sunakake-baba). The trimmed background looks good with the cels, but is unmatching, as it is labeled “No. 30” on top.